The Stars Have Lost Their Glitter
by Ellie12
Summary: Reminiscing and introspection, after Leia leaves Bespin. Post-ESB, Han/Leia


She'd tended to Luke as best she could with the supplies on the ship, aided by the cauterization of the lightsaber. Painkillers had lulled him into slumber, and she'd finally left his side to flit through the cockpit, checking their flight time to the last known Alliance rendezvous point. Twelve hyperspace hours from Bespin, the opposite direction of Han's likely delivery to Tatooine.

Without anything left to do, she trailed her way back to the cabin. His cabin, _their_ cabin, so recently. The bunk was still neatly made, just as he'd left it, sharp military corners and crisp pillowcases inviting memories of whispered nothings...

—_prettiest eyes I've ever seen—_

—_oh right there please just—_

—_your touch is like nothing else—_

—_just hold you like this forever—_

...and passionate kisses and fingers tangled in long flowing hair. But she couldn't bear it, couldn't sink down onto that bed alone, not right now. She backed out of the room, eyes frozen on the blankness of white sheets not soon likely to be wrapped around her as they had been that morning he'd fed her the last of the fresh fruit.

The sound of their laughter still seemed to reverberate in the chamber, too recent, too fresh a wound.

Turning down the hall, she took in the silence for a moment before turning and making her way somewhere small enough for one. The gravity shifted slightly as she climbed into the upper gun turret, and she sat down into the seat hard as her body acclimated to the change.

They'd come up here once during their flight, with hot toddies and tentative hands, still exploring new boundaries and a relationship shifting like the gravity. Both of them had somehow fit into this seat, her smaller form wrapping around his larger one, hands careful with late night drinks around the equipment. She'd thought he was going to seduce her here, and she'd not been averse to the idea, but he'd merely held her, gazing out at the glittering stars, pointing out the distant swath of light from the Core worlds, the swirl of color from the Kessel maw, the eerie nothingness of the empty regions beyond the Rim.

It had not been the seduction she'd been expecting, but it was a seduction just the same, senses and memory aflame.

Held her with rough, tender hands, barely grazing her hips, her back. As if he couldn't get enough of just touching her, merely being with her. He'd seemed to crave physical contact with her, since granted permission to touch, a hand on her shoulder, a thigh against hers at the table, intimate in a gentle way she hadn't expected.

Pointed out the the bright hot glow of Corel and he'd whispered, _kinda like home_.

Shown her the fainter glimmer of Alderaan's star system, as he kissed her temple.

He'd held her for a long time as she'd simply looked, looked back thousands of years to starlight from a time before the Republic, before Aldera, before House Organa. _My only chance to see home again,_ she'd said.

They'd stayed there long into the ship's night, sipping their cooling drinks and sharing other glimpses of the past, tidbits from their lives at home.

_-were always outside. There was always snow in the mountains, even in the summer. We used to go-_

_Actually, _she's _the one who taught me how to play sabacc…._

_He brought me back a whole bag of them,and I ate so many of them at once that I got sick!_

_...ten, I guess. I'm not really sure when…_

_...then every single one of them broke and I had to—_

—_but all I really wanted to do was fly._

_There was only one time I really got in trouble—_

It was the first time she'd spoken to a non-Alderaanian about her home since the ceremony on Yavin. To her surprise, with him it hadn't caused the tight, burning nausea or the ache in her chest that often came when she thought of it. It hadn't caused the uncontrollable tears she'd allowed herself _once_, that night, alone in the tiny quarters she'd been granted. She'd felt—if not quite happy—at least unburdened, a little, to share those memories with him.

Now he was a memory too, somewhere out there, nowhere like home, not even here, not without him. Another thing beloved and lost.

Breathing deeply she could almost smell him, here in this seat, here on the Falcon. Almost feel him wrapped around her as he had that night. She wished for a moment to have the skill with the Force that Luke had, to reach out to him as Luke had to her on Bespin. To be able to reassure him she was safe, to reassure herself that he was still alive, to tell him that she didn't know _how_, but that she would save him just as he'd saved her a dozen times over. Tell him that she loved him, over and over and over until he was in her arms again and she could show him.

Rather than the field of glittering stars he'd shared with her, she stared out into the glow of hyperspace, stars all running together, indistinguishable. Cold and impersonal rather than individual worlds.

Hyperspace blurred the stars together to nothingness, no unique spark, no life, but dangerously hypnotic. She gave in, let it lull her, drifting into a restless, dreamless sleep just as she had on the Death Star after Alderaan, when her mind had shut itself down rather than allow her to suffer another minute. Not restful but necessary. At this moment she could not handle another loss, this one so personal, so specific. A planet had almost been impossible to process; a man was so intimate it instantly ached somewhere deep she'd forgotten she possessed.

When she awoke, she almost let herself believe Han was still here, wrapped around her warm and comforting just as he'd been every morning for the past month. But cold reality sunk in quickly enough, as the icy glow of hyperspace shone through the viewport. Frozen as her heart, finally shattered, after all the effort she'd put in to resisting him merely out of a wish to avoid heartbreak when he left.

He'd left her alone, in a way far worse than either of them could have imagined. Now there was no possibility of him paying off a debt and coming back to her. It would be up to her now to rescue him; it was not a question to her of if, but when and how.

But she was reminded that she would not be alone in her efforts by the soft whuffing call of Chewie from the deck level, inquiring quietly if she was awake. Clearing her throat, her voice wobbly with slumber and emotion, she called down to him, "Give me a minute, I'll be down."

There was empathy his rumble of affirmation, and she realized that she was not alone in this grief either; though their emotions may have come from different places, both she and the Wookiee were both mourning the loss of Han. She trusted him as much as she trusted Han, because Han trusted him completely, and would trust in him as they planned a rescue.

Steeling herself to go begin planning just that, she took several deep, calming breaths, and gazed out at the frigid blue starlight, borrowing some of its cold fire. She had taken her moment to mourn, she would now take action.


End file.
